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100 Women Who Care disband after honourable effort

March 3, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Despite having to close its chapter, the Alliston chapter of 100 Women Who Care are proud of what they accomplished as a group.

Dwindling numbers during the pandemic never recovered, and when unable to recruit more women, the chapter decided they had done their part, and it was time to move on.

100 Women Who Care is a movement that started in Michigan in 2006. The concept was that each chapter or group of 100 women would gather for just one hour, each with $100 to give.

A local charity of non-profit is then gifted $10,000. During meetings, approved charities would make their case as to why they deserved a donation.

At the Alliston chapter, not every woman was required to donate $100. Several people could come together to come up with the required amount. However, a vote for a charity was still based on the $100 donation, so one vote per each $100 donation.

The Alliston chapter was created in 2019 and spent the next few years raising funds of almost $45,000.

During 2021, the group helped fund CAMH York / Simcoe MOBYSS Project, Candlelighters Simcoe, Matthew’s House Camp Chysalis, and YouthReach.

When the number of women attending started to drop, they could no longer meet the title quota of 100 women for each meeting.

“We would be put out the call for non-profit or charitable organizations that needed our support,” explained 100 Women Who Care Alliston, steering committee member Caitlyn Robinson. “We would pick three of them, and they would come in and present to our audience. I don’t believe we ever had 100 women. We would vote, as a group, and who ever got the majority of the votes was the charity that would receive the funds. We had local women, local business owners that were women, and because all of the money went to local charities, we had local sponsors as well. You were also able to create teams. If you had a group of five women together, they could all donate $20.00.”

The Gibson Centre in Alliston donated the space for the meetings.

The group decided to disband for several reasons.

“It was a perfect storm of things,” Ms. Robinson explained. “Just before COVID, we had a huge turnout. Then COVID struck, and we had less and less people coming out. We also had fewer and fewer charities that were applying. We struggled with our last meeting, when we only had one charity that was willing to come out, and that’ not the way the format works.”

While they have decided to disband, the group is still proud of their efforts in helping local organizations.

“I wish we could have given more, but at the end of the day, we did make a difference,” Ms. Robinson said. “We did help to raise awareness about the pillars of our community that are supporting each other. I think we did do some good.”

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